So I Need You
by Mrs. HopeEstheim
Summary: One-sided GinRan. Gin is reflecting on his feelings for Rangiku before the betrayal. Song-fic to "So I Need You" by 3 Doors Down. My first GinRan - I hope it's okay :


_**If you could step into my head**_

_**Tell me, would you still know me?**_

No, I decided. If I were schizophrenic, that decision would have been unanimous from each and every one of those separate personalities. Ran-chan would not know me anymore - she wouldn't even begin to understand these thoughts that are poisoning my mind and controlling my body. And of course, most of these thoughts were because of my former captain, but for some strange reason my mind decided that his plot is right and his reasoning is valid. And I know, as I've told myself hundreds of times, that I'll lose her. She won't know me anymore if I continue to let her in. I don't want to lose her completely, you know?

_**And if you woke up in my bed**_

_**Tell me, then would you hold me?**_

If I told her about the plan, would she see me differently? Or if I confessed to her before the aforementioned plan of Aizen's is put in motion, would she return my accursed emotion? Of all the people this had to happen to, it just had to be me. Ichimaru Gin, soon to be a traitor and currently captain of the Gotei 13's Third Division. I'd grown up with _her_, though. It was like the small captain of the Tenth Division and Aizen's Lieutenant in the Fifth. They were childhood friends, and everyone thought they would get together. It was inevitable. And I hoped that Ran-chan and I were like that - seen like that. But my hope is probably completely futile. Especially since the betrayal looms ever nearer and I am already involved in it. And worse, it may take her life or the lives of those she cares about. All in all, when it comes to me and this stupid feeling, I'm up Shit Creek.

_**Or would you simply let it lie**_

_**Leaving me to wonder why**_

_**I can't get you out of this head that I call mine?**_

She would definitely leave my circle of friends after the betrayal. And I would briefly wonder why she's always on my mind. But only briefly, because I've known the answer to the 'why' for a long while. For decades, even!

_**And I will say**_

_**Oh, no, can't let you go**_

_**My little girl**_

_**Because you're holding up my world**_

_**So I need you**_

'My little Girl'…well, she was younger than I. and she is the light in my life. If it weren't for the threat that Aizen - that bastard - held over my head the moment my doubts began to surface, I would have told Head Captain Yamamoto years ago what he had planned. I would have taken whatever punishment that the Gotei 13 had for me, just so she wouldn't feel betrayed by me. Ran-chan was everything to me at this point. _Everything_.

_**Your imitation of my walk**_

_**And the perfect way you talk**_

_**It's just a couple of the million things**_

_**That I love about you**_

_**So I need you**_

When I first realized that I was falling for her, it was when she was teasing me. She said I was gay and as 'proof' she reenacted my walk by practically _strutting_ through the halls of the Academy. The next time she pretended to be me, she said I acted like I was gangster and did what she called a pimp walk. That time, she had been drunk. There were various times throughout our long friendship that she tried to imitate me, and every single time I fell a little deeper. I even fell when she tried to talk like me, although she failed miserable and I much preferred listening to the melodic tone that was _her_ voice. I preferred that sound over her imitations of me any day. My Ran-chan…

_**So I need you**_

_**So I need you**_

_**So I need you**_

Ran-chan, you _are_ my everything.

_**And if I jumped off the Brooklyn Bridge**_

_**Tell me, would you still follow me?**_

When we were younger, she used to follow me. She wasn't quite helpless when she followed me, but after we met she seemed like a lost little puppy without me. That was before she developed a stronger sense of independence, her firm and unyielding nature. I still recall sometimes the blissful innocence she used to have as a child, although it had been tainted horribly by the life she had lived in the Rukongai. Her bright eyes, her bubbly nature. It was an improvement from her old, withdrawn self, and all of this sides were a part of her. The little girl that followed me was still there inside of her somewhere, but I didn't think she would want to follow this time.

_**And if I made you mad today**_

_**Would you love me tomorrow?**_

I'm like any guy, yeah? I like to tease her because I love the way she looks when she's all riled up and angry like that. Sometimes my innocent teasing seems to go too far, and I always wonder if it's the end of the friendship we had. But almost every time, she will seek me out the very next day and, although I tend to refuse, ask me to join she and my lieutenant, as well as two other lieutenants and the third and fifth seats of the Eleventh, for a drink. The few times I do accept, she gets drunk and tells me that she loves me. And I let myself believe for just those nights that she wasn't drunk, and that she really mean it. And I also let myself hope that maybe my Ran-chan isn't as out of it as she seems. I hope, but still nothing she does when she's sober proves what her drunken self says to me. Perhaps I would have revealed to plot if only she showed me some proof that my hope was valid. But perhaps not, if Aizen's threat was also valid - which I knew it was.

_**Please**_

Please don't hate me, Ran-chan. I love you.

_**Or would you say that you don't care**_

_**And then leave me standing there?**_

I fear that the most; that she won't care about me at all anymore. If I told her my feelings, that is. I already know she probably won't when we leave. And I also know that it will hurt her and I'll be left all alone after I join Sosuke Aizen and Kaname Tosen in this betrayal.

_**Like the fool who is drowning in despair**_

_**And screaming**_

Maybe I won't drown in my despair, but I would definitely wallow in it, at the very least. My tears might drown me before my despair does, before I'm executed for being a traitor, or the accomplice of a traitor, as unwilling as I have become. I no longer approve of the plan, that's for sure. No, and now I'm a thrice-blasted fool and I'm going to lose her because if it - _if_ I even had her to begin with.

_**Oh, no, I can't let you go**_

_**My little girl**_

_**Because you're holding up my world**_

_**So I need you**_

_**Your imitation of my walk**_

_**And the perfect way you talk**_

_**It's just a couple of the million things**_

_**That I love about you **_

A few more of the things I love about her are her shining, healthy locks of orange hair, falling down her back in shimmering tresses. Her smile. Her laugh. I don't even look at her…_assets_…most of the time. I'm not that kind of man, when it comes to her. I could never be so shallow with Ran-chan - for me, to love one part of or about her is to love it all.

_**So I need you**_

_**So I need you**_

_**So I need you**_

_**So I need you**_

I can't say it - or write it - enough. Ran-chan, Rangiku-san, Matsumoto-san, Lieutenant Matsumoto - however you prefer to be called - you are everything to me.

_**I'm on my own**_

_**I'm on my own**_

_**I'm on my own**_

I'm all alone in this. This is the one thing, the only thing, I can't tell you about. The one time, Ran-chan, that there's nothing you can do to help me.

I want to tell her all of that so much, but she knows me so well that she'd know instantly that something was wrong. So the only people who know my problem are the other two involved. And it's so lonely, being in love with someone who will be on the other side soon. I can't reach out to her and hold her. I can't comfort her when she's feeling down.a nd it scares me so much that Aizen discovered my deepest secret; my deep, unrelenting, irrevocable attraction to her. So now I must be docile, and just go along with it all and hope he won't hurt her. I could not live if she were not alive somewhere, too.

_**Oh, no, I can't let you go**_

_**My little girl**_

_**Because you're holding up my world**_

_**So I need you**_

_**Your imitation of my walk**_

_**And the perfect way you talk**_

_**It's just a couple of the million things**_

_**That I love about you**_

_There's not just a million things, Ran-chan_, I want to say to her. A few more decades with her, and I'd have found a few billion things about her to be in love with.

_**So I need you **_

_**So I need you**_

_**So I need you**_

_**So I need you**_

I could not live if Matsumoto Rangiku was dead. I, soon-to-be former Third Division captain Ichimaru Gin, am completely irrevocably in love with her. I would give up on my involvement in the plan to betray the Gotei 13 were it not for the threat Aizen held over my head. I can't lose Ran-chan, and he knows that. If I back out, he would kill her. And I know that I can't be with her anyway, because of my traitorous deeds to come, but I still need her to be safe.

Ran-chan, I wish I could tell you I love you. I know I can't.

But I still need you.


End file.
